Music Marketing and PR Services

Twitter Promotion

As of a few days ago, you can now add 6 second videos to your tweets to spice them up a little bit. The start-up company Vine makes it incredibly easy to create and share bite-sized videos that have a lot of potential in the music marketing world.

Establish a Profile Picture

After registering your account, the first thing you need to do is set a profile picture for yourself. As a band, it’s recommended that you use a catchy image that’s either your newest album cover or a picture of one of your band members.

Not changing your default photo to something that tells people about your band is setting yourself up for failure. Users of social media sites want to follow PEOPLE not just users. Having yourself on the site isn’t enough. Establishing an identity is the ultimate goal.

As tempting as it is to use a photograph of your entire band, the profile images are simply too small to display all of your faces clearly, so opting for an easily identifiable image instead of a cluttered one is the way to go. If possible, avoid using your lengthy band name in the photo as well. If you have just a simple logo that will become synonymous with your band, that’s the thing you should go for.

Specifications

The maximum photo size is 700kilobytes. JPG, GIF, and PNG images are supported.

48×48 pixels is displayed in the Twitter feed and 128×128 is displayed in your profile image.

Profile Bio

Next, it’s time to set up a profile bio. Although you have a picture, when people visit your profile, they’re going to want to read what you’re all about. Things to include are:

Band Name: Although your Twitter profile name is probably already your band name, it doesn’t hurt to reintroduce yourself. “Hey, we’re [INSERT BAND NAME HERE].”

Where You’re From: Having your city here will help in the off chance that a band is coming through town and they want to ask you to join onto a bill. Every little bit of info helps when making connections with people.

Genre: Describe your music in a few short words.

Website URL: Include your music URL so that people know where to listen to your stuff! Don’t use your Bandcamp or Soundcloud URL either. Use your official website.

The below example is the format that I generally try to use for the band’s that Sunshine Promotion

works with. It’s important to learn to be concise with your bio and to include as much information as possible.

Example: “Hey, we’re [Band Name], a psychedelic folk band from Seattle, Washington. You can hear and download our music for free at: [URL]”

Final Thoughts

It often feels like other Twitter branding suggestions always lead back to the same tip of “be unique!” While you may very well be a “psych-metal band with crusty feelings built up inside,” that doesn’t always attract attention.

The key to a successful profile is giving just enough information to people to entice them to follow-up with clicking on your profile link. Sometimes being overly descriptive and unique with your adjectives can hurt your online image, as you’ll be forever pegged as “that band.”

Pinholing yourself early on may help you build a following of people who find the term “crusty feelings” just as funny as you, but when it’s time to branch beyond that, you may alienate your original fan base or prevent yourself from gaining a new one.

Keep things simple and professional and stay on topic. Don’t tell people what you sound like. Encourage them to find out themselves.